Shortly after the 2011 election, as Labor Party officials and the brand new Opposition Leader, John Robertson, were searching for ways to explain the reasons for their emphatic loss, introspection was identified as a key culprit.

''We have to stop talking about ourselves,'' was a common refrain when discussing why Labor had been so violently ejected from office in NSW.

Approaching two years later, it seems we can't shut them up.

The weekend before last, NSW Labor's Left assistant secretary, John Graham, delivered a searing assessment of the party's internal culture.

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Addressing a gathering of party members in the Hunter region, Graham attacked the ''rampant culture of self-interest'' within the former Labor government. He called for wide-ranging internal reform, including allowing rank and file members, not just the Labor caucus, to elect the parliamentary leader.

Last Saturday, the general secretary of NSW Labor, Sam Dastyari, struck another blow. Dastyari repeated his calls for the party to change and announced ALP head office was contemplating a move to Parramatta to reconnect with its western Sydney base.

On Tuesday night, it was the turn of the Labor elder statesman, Senator John Faulkner, to blow the whistle on Labor's culture.

In a well reported speech, Faulkner also pushed for rank-and-file election of the leader, after which the Left faction of which he is a prominent member publicly called for a special party conference next year to ''deal directly with NSW Labor's culture''.

The reason for all this public navel gazing, of course, is the Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiries involving the former Labor ministers Eric Roozendaal, Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald, which have exposed the dark underbelly of how the party operated in government in NSW.

A large part of the public soul searching is a public relations exercise; the need to express contrition to the public as part of the rebuilding process.

But there is also a sense of urgency, of which those in favour of change are only too aware.

The ICAC hearings have given reformers such as Dastyari, Graham and Faulkner licence to speak out publicly. They know they have opened a crucial window of opportunity to stare down opponents of change within the party ranks, who primarily come from the mainstream Right.

Key to this strategy is Dastyari, who is using his powerful position as general secretary - and notional head of the dominant Right faction - to lead the charge.

Dastyari has been in the job since April 2010. While he has stated his intention to remain there until at least the 2019 election (ostensibly to see through the reform process) there is no guarantee of him staying beyond 2015, particularly given speculation he has an eye on a move to Canberra.

At the same time there are concerns his successor may not pursue reform with the same vigour, imbuing an even greater sense of urgency to the current push.

This is one reason the Left is pushing for a special state conference next year.

The thinking is that this would provide a platform to telegraph the desire for reform before the federal election and have it done well and truly before the 2015 state poll, giving Robertson the chance to argue that the party has changed.

There are significant arguments for and against many of the reforms being proposed, not the least of which is that allowing rank and file members to elect the leader is an open invitation to branch stacking.

What is more difficult to argue is that the party needs to have the debate now if it is going to happen at all.